I was taught that the incorrect answer was the conclusion, so I learned to stay inside the narrow and constricted territory and called that mastery even its the same room that has stopped me trying to become me,
I was taught that the incorrect answer was the conclusion, so I became very skilled at producing the right answer and very unskilled not-knowing that all real deeper discovery,
How much of what I have made or built or offered in the past year was genuinely new territory and how much of it was the familiar thing done with more polish,
I was taught that the incorrect answer was the conclusion, so early that I am still living inside it decades later in ways I have not fully been willing to examine honestly...
The most daunting failure I have feared is that I am not as capable or original or bold as the version of myself I have been quietly maintaining in the space between what I claim and what I can actually attempt,
The most daunting failure I have feared is the one that in an unmapped territory, that territory there is no correct answer to default to and no precedent to protect me if the work goes wrong,
Am I actually afraid that the failure will reveal I am not enough or am I more terrified that the failure in the exact territory where I suspected something real and important was waiting,
The most daunting failure I have feared is the one I must take complete responsibility for, I cannot blame myself or anyone else for interfering with my efforts.
There’s a kind of wrong turn that the fearful and obsessed part of me took, she would have been technically correct, and I would have missed the entire discovery,
There’s a kind of wrong turn that leads to something I wasn’t prepared to lose, yet it still produces something I couldn’t have achieved through any of the safe, guaranteed, and pre-approved routes I had meticulously planned in advance,
If the wrong turn I took last time, which embarrassed me, led to something I needed to know, what prevents me from taking the same precautions before it even happens,
There’s a kind of wrong turn that, on its own, is enough to make someone like me stand at an intersection forever if I let it…
I am still learning what I am capable of, not evidence of inadequacy but of genuine aliveness because only the things that are still growing have answers that are still arriving,
I’m still discovering my capabilities, and I’m not failing to be competent, instead, I’m succeeding in the only endeavor that ever results in something truly original,
I’ve been avoiding something because I’m not sure how much it’ll cost me if I join before I get the guarantee I’ve been waiting for,
I am still learning what I am capable of, and the learning is made of wrong turns, which means I must stop waiting at the threshold for permission and finally have the courage to step inside..
I stayed in the room I already knew how to leave,
The failure in unmapped territory I kept avoiding,
The wrong turn only visible after you have taken it,
Wrong in public before I am right and after,
Waiting at the threshold for permission to begin...
